War Cry

July 3, 2020. Friday, the next day.

“Where’d you end up going yesterday?” Salome asks me. “You disappeared for an hour or two in the afternoon.”

We’re back on the front lines, demonstrating with our signs in front of the Capitol. So far, we’ve not heard a single peep from the government. Sometimes, it feels like our performance is just for the policemen and the counter-protestors at the other end of the plaza.

“I was searching for you,” I say. “Where did you end up going?”

“To meet some friends,” she says, looking guiltier than Capone. “Our days out on the streets are so packed that I thought I wouldn’t have the chance to meet them otherwise…”

“You told me about the secret meeting already. You don’t have to lie to me.”

“Oops,” Salome laughs, somehow getting an even guiltier expression to cross her face. “I forgot you knew about that.”

“The meeting went well?” I ask.

Salome stops to take some selfies with a bunch of teenage girls who look more ready to go out clubbing than to take on their corrupt government. They bat their long lashes and chatter to each other in excitement as they take their photos, and then a moment later they are gone, mixing back into the crowd.

“Oh, to be young again,” Salome says wistfully. It’s a change of the topic, not entirely smooth, but I decide not to press her on it.

“You’ve still got it,” I say, wanting to accentuate that comment with a smack on her ass. But there are cameras everywhere, and so I hold my hand back.

“If only that were true,” she sighs. “But I know that I’m not as attractive as I once was. Time does that to all of us.”

“People say that Hyerim’s only gotten prettier over the years,” I say. “I thought I read in a magazine somewhere the two of you share tips with each other to stay young.”

Salome laughs again, a light, tinkling thing.

“She shares some things with me,” she says. “But it’s not stuff that I wouldn’t already know. Pointers for skincare, things about diet and nutrition that every model understands… She’s got a secret that she’s keeping to herself. And she’s not sharing it with me.”

“You’re sure of that?” I ask. “It’s not just, good genes, or being Asian, or something like that?”

“Those things help you slow down ageing,” she says.

“But she looks better with every passing year,” I say.

And it’s true. When I was kicked out of home twenty years ago, Hyerim was a bombshell, there was no doubt about that, but it was also clear that Father married her for the corporate connections that she represented. But these days? I would kill to get a piece of her luscious curves and perfect creamy skin.

“It’s my problem to worry about,” Salome says. “Besides, you’re probably right. Her daughters are all ageing gracefully.”

Can confirm. I’ve fucked two of them, I think, but I push the thought aside as I see Scarlet stomping towards us, a scowl on her face.

“Have you seen this?” she says, whipping her phone out.

She turns the screen towards us, and I read the tweet on display:

Go home, white bitch

Posted 1 minute ago.

The tweet comes from no account other than the Senado de la República, the verified checkmark hitting like a nail in the coffin.

The phrase echoes in my head. Go home, white bitch. From her government, from the politicians in that building. I feel an anger start to rise in me.

“No,” Salome gasps, hugging her daughter from the side.

“How could they?” I say, looking up at the massive Capitol that houses all of those politicians. “Surely this is some sick joke.”

But I hear the chants coming from the eastern end of the plaza already.

GO HOME, WHITE BITCH!

The counter-protestors are yelling it, waving their phones high in the air.

GO HOME, WHITE BITCH!

Their chant grows louder. Our protestors, all across the plaza, are staring at them now, checking their phones, figuring out what’s going on.

“I need to get in front of a camera,” Scarlet says, grasping my arm.

“We can get you there,” I say, but the media crews are halfway across the plaza.

We’d have to cross in front of the police and then the counter-protestors to get there. And these people are looking angry.

GO HOME, WHITE BITCH!

Some of the policemen are yelling it too, jeering at us, shaking their batons, pounding their shields on the ground.

A crowd is beginning to form around us, people yammering and panicking and trying to get Scarlet’s attention.

“Where’s my team when I need them?” Scarlet mutters, looking frantically around her. But all the people around us are just regular old protestors, old folks and young pressing in, phones raised up, recording Scarlet, recording Salome, recording me.

Scarlet’s messaging her groups on her phone, she’s getting a dozen replies a second, and then she looks up at me again.

“We have a game plan,” she says. “But I need to get to those news crews. We can use this to our advantage. Get the public behind us.”

In the background, I hear their chants growing louder.

“Clear the way!” I yell in Spanish, sweeping my arms, trying to part the crowds. “Scarlet needs to get through!”

As I forge through the dense masses, doing my best to muscle past people without hurting them, Scarlet sticks close behind me, typing fast on her phone, muttering catch phrases and instructions under her breath as she tries to coordinate her team on the fly.

“There’s the white bitch!” I hear somebody shout nearby.

I spin around to confront the man, but he’s slipped into the rest of the crowd a moment later, just another face among ten dozen others.

“We’re getting close to the edge of the crowd,” I say, standing on my tip-toes for a moment to look over the heads of everyone else.

Scarlet’s flipped to the live broadcast of some television station which has a wide-angle view of everything going on.

“This isn’t good,” she says. “Their marching on us.”

“They?” I ask.

I realize who she means as I hear their chant growing louder.

GO HOME, WHITE BITCH!

It takes me only a few seconds more to break through to the edge of the crowd. I see the police standing in their lines, standing tense, ready to strike at a moment’s notice. The narrow corridor that we had to walk down towards the media crews has shrunk to something barely a foot wide, the protestors pressing closer to the police.

But it’s the end of the line that concerns me. The counter-protestors have taken the end of the corridor, marching forward and boxing us in, preventing us from getting to where we need to.

I know better than to try to break through them.

“Let’s circle back. Get out of the plaza, meet the media crews from the other side,” I say.

“There’s no time,” Scarlet says. “Cameras are hot, we need to set the tone before—”

“You want to go through them?” I sputter, pointing at the police, and then at the hooligans waving their phones, chanting GO HOME, WHITE BITCH! at a fever pitch now.

Scarlet takes a look at their faces, tomato-red with anger, the way they are stomping forwards, unified in voice, the way that one of them points at her, the ripple of energy that flows through them…

Her face pales.

“Let’s go around,” she says, and I feel her hand slip into mine as I turn back, trying to find us a new path to those media crews.